Poets get Carrollton-Farmers Branch ISD students to stand and deliver

CARROLLTON — Snap, snap, snap! The sounds slide from the fingertips of guest poets Will Richey and Alejandro Perez, who begin to croon in sweet falsettos, “I know more than you think I know.”

A sweeter volley of the lyric echoes from the class filled with 9- and 10-year-olds. They continue, “My mind’s open, willing to grow.”

It’s warm-up for their speech-and-song mission — a morning of writing, of pouring happiness, humor and healing onto lined paper. Richey and Perez animate reading and writing by dancing out narratives with a hip-hop beat, with I-will-achieve sing-alongs and with word exercises to release the power of fourth-graders. The duo considers such techniques crucial to freeing children to relax and learn, unleashed from the pressure of tests.

Composition books at Central Elementary School in the Carrollton-Farmers Branch ISD fill with penciled words crawling along the ruled pages like hungry ants chasing bread. Then the scribes recite their words.

“My family separated,” begins Daniela Caldera, who wears a hot pink clip in her luxuriant black hair. “I wish for a life like the people on TV.” She swallows, keeps eyes glued to her paper and says, “My life needs a drop of happiness. … Just one drop and I will adore it while it lasts.”

Daniela starts to dissolve.

“Group hug,” shouts Richey, a 36-year-old father of two. The girls around Daniela move in for a gentle squeeze.

“That was beautiful,” says Richey, eyeing Daniela’s wet cheeks. “People, talk to her at lunch or after class and say thank you for having the courage to do that.”

Richey and Perez give three-day workshops, like this one, in schools, morning assemblies with anti-bullying themes and after-school programs with anti-drug messages.

Richey is most recognized for his lead in Dallas’ best-known poetry and spoken word program — DaVerse Lounge. It’s in its eighth year of quarterly events, with performers in their 50s and some still in middle schools. At November’s annual event, DaVerse drew more than 400 people, including those gathered for the 75th conference of the National Guild for Community Arts Education. SMU artist-inresidence and poet-playwright Will Power performed, too.

Yet Richey says teaching isn’t what he does to finance his art. Performing his own work, which often explores dislocation, isn’t his motivation.

“I don’t have a desire to do art as entertainment,” he says. “My calling is behind the scenes. We really believe we are healers.”

So in workshops, children in fractured families pour out pleas for “one drop of happiness” that speak to their vulnerabilities. Others show their zest for storytelling by exposing intimate details of life on the school wrestling mat, or how dancing gives them joy and family unity, or what it’s like to move from Mexico from teachers you love to a Texas classroom.

Mia Uvaldo pops up proudly to recite her story.

“I have butterflies in my stomach and sweat on my face,” she begins. “I want to puke.”

Coach Evans held my hand up and said, ‘Winner.’ His hand on my wrist felt like leather.”

Richey focuses on that muscular sentence. “His hand on my wrist felt like leather! Awesome. Very cool story. Thank you for sharing.”

‘Great listener’

Richey started his business, Journeyman Ink, in 2006. One of his biggest clients is the Dallas education nonprofit Big Thought, which celebrates its 25th anniversary this year. He works there in a program for juveniles on probation. Yet his back story would appear to be free from such trouble.

He grew up in a Roman Catholic family in Ferriday, La., a segregated town of fewer than 4,000 people near the Mississippi River. He was the eldest of four children of a white lawyer he calls overachieving and a Puerto Rican mother who met her husband while pursuing a sociology degree at Loyola University in New Orleans.

The Latin culture of his mother, Jessie Teresa Valcarcel, was submerged and Richey grew up thinking he was “just another white boy.” At 40, his father, Daniel Richey, who had been a state legislator, switched careers. It coincided with his eldest son’s teenage years. The father became an educator, and the family’s wealth slid.

He came to this area to attend the University of Dallas, where he graduated with a degree in education and a minor in Spanish and was a basketball team captain. Then he began digging into his Latin roots.

In the Big Thought program, many of the teens on probation suffer post-traumatic stress and are behind in their studies by several grades, said Lisa Schmidt, a Big Thought instructional specialist who hired Richey seven years ago. Richey can reach them, she says. His empathy comes from his exposure to persistent traumas among loved ones, he says, guarding some privacy.

“He is a great listener,” Schmidt said. “When he reads their work, he reads it like it’s Yeats. He treats them with that level of seriousness and respect.”

Back to school

Back at Central Elementary, students work their craft as a golden light filters through the library windows. The school is 98 percent Hispanic. Nearly as many come from low-income backgrounds, according to the Texas Education Agency. In the four-tier quality rating system of the state, Central holds the second-highest rank.

The Journeyman Ink visit comes through federal financing the school receives for instructional improvements by virtue of the students’ financially humble origins. Assistant Principal Diane Fulcher praises the duo, saying they help “the kids find their voice. There is power in writing, and it does so much for them.”

On the second day of the workshop, one boy, Asiel Calzada, speaks in Spanish to explain where his power comes from, in a sentence-building exercise. But on the third day, he switches to English.

“My power comes from …”

Richey can’t make out the final word. “From your lunch?” Richey coaxes.

“No, from my lungs,” shouts Asiel, as the class cracks up.

Blanca Flores gets special attention from Fulcher, who lived in Mexico for a decade, as she writes. Blanca doesn’t want to tell her story, not even to her mother or teachers. Fulcher encourages her to “tell the paper” instead. Blanca does, using the sophisticated word desahogarme, which means to release emotion.

Out spills a story of loneliness for her teachers back in Guanajuato, Mexico, who are the “best in the country.” But she gives thanks to her Central teachers, too, who are “los mejores en America,” the best in America.

Her tears rise over her lashes.

Richey jumps in: “If you share something sad, what did I say earlier? It divides. And what did I say if you share something happy?

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